Photography is one of my favorite ways to see the world.

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    • Five Frames in Camp Mather with my Yashica 124G and Portra 160

      Published on September 8, 2023

      One of the more unique things about Bay Area life is that many Bay Area cities have their own 'cabin in the woods' programs in the summer. San Francisco has Camp Mather, Oakland has Feather River Camp, Berkeley has two camps at Tuolumne River and at Echo Lake, San Jose has one near Groveland.

      Camping in the Sierras is a tradition in this region. The camps all work similarly: the recs and parks departments of those cities manage and operate these camps, which are also excellent places for youths to work summer jobs as they get free board and an hourly rate comparable to working in a restaurant. For outdoorsy youths it certainly seems like a dream, and I wish I had such a thing open to me as a teen. The camps are open to residents and non-residents, though non-residents will tend to pay a little more. The cities also have subsidized programs for lower income residents, and may also run special weeks for the elderly, for families, or for disabled children.

      San Francisco's Camp Mather seems to be one of the most competitive ones to apply to. There's a lottery, and if you win it you get to go. On a whim, I applied to a lottery for a 3 person cabin and got it for late August. I went with my wife, and a friend.

      The cabin was a reasonable size, with only space for a double and a single bed and a chest of drawers. Mosquito nets all over the windows and doors. Clean bathrooms and toilets a short (1 min) walk way. The camp was very well set up, with good facilities. There was a swimming pool and a gorgeous lake. There are activities for adults and children every single day and evening. There are on-site naturalists who have daily morning and evening walks to nearby spots. We went on one such walk, and found it fun and helpful: they knew the trails that were not widely known, and they'd each had decades of experience in that particular spot of Stanislaus National Forest (where Camp Mather is located) and the parts of Yosemite National Park that are near.

      What you can expect: Hetch-Hetchy, the reservoir that provides water to San Francisco, is a short drive away and is gorgeous. Almost as gorgeous as parts of Yosemite National Park, but with far fewer tourists. Plan for a whole day in Yosemite Valley, which is easily accessible, if you haven't been. The kitchen can provide a packed lunch (various sandwiches and fruit) for your days out of camp. A coworker said 'Camp Mather is the only place where I can leave my children and have them entertained from morning to night, while I also get to do fun things on my own or with my spouse, and I just have my kids on a walkie-talkie and everyone has fun'.

      Indeed, that was the vibe of the whole place. On the evenings we were there, adult programs included 'wine and paint night in the barn' and 'walk to see the superbloom of a giant flower'. Oh, there are also tennis courts, and lots of ping pong tables. Food was also good, and it's nice to be in an outdoorsy environment without having to manage your food supply!

      Overall, I'm a fan.

      a scan of a color negative of a medium format photo. photo is of the Yosemite peaks from tunnel view, showing the peaks in the background and some trees in the foreground

      View of the famous Yosemite peaks from Tunnel View.

      a scan of a color negative of a medium format photo. photo is a butterfly-like insect on a plant

      Going out to spend time in nature is just a wondrous gift.

      a scan of a color negative of a medium format photo. photo is of a wooden cabin with the number 96 in the foreground, and trees in the background

      Our little cabin that was home for a few nights.

      a scan of a color negative of a medium format photo. photo is of a bench set among some trees and cabins

      Every cabin has a bench like this in front of it. It's a good place to have a snack or just sit, as the cabin doesn't have much of a seating area.

      a scan of a color negative of a medium format photo. photo is of a waterfall in yosemite

      Yosemite in the summer is extremely crowded. If you only have a day you might only be able to see the car-accessible spots in and around Yosemite Valley. But it is still wonderful. This is a photo of Lower Yosemite Falls. Not pictured: the hundreds of people below it.

      All photos taken with Yashica Mat 124G, Kodak Portra 160, self-developed in Bellini C41 kit, and scanned on Fuji Frontier.

    • B Sides (Myanmar)

      Published on July 18, 2023

      Some time around 2012/2013, I spent most of my time in Myanmar. The country was opening up: Aung San Suu Kyi was out, reform was in the air, Burmese students and exiles were coming home. There was a true spirit of hope and optimism. I was no longer a photographer or writer at that time, but I had developed a set of skills from my time in that world. I had become the person that tech companies sent to 'figure stuff out in new markets'. It was also a lucrative and exciting gig while that lasted. I did that for a couple of years.

      My time being a 'fixer' for photographers and journalists around Southeast Asia also meant that I already knew people everywhere. I was not only okay with bureaucracy, I celebrated it. They just seemed like interesting puzzles to solve. Getting a photographer access to a person in a Bangladeshi village was more complex than getting a multinational company access to the top ten people they could hire, or finding them an office space in a booming market.

      a photo of two people in a Burmese restaurant, one wearing a hat and another wearing traditional Burmese attire and reading a newspaper

      Somewhere in Mandalay.

      a photo of the insides of a Burmese restaurant with blue pastel walls and wooden chairs and tables and a very old photo of Britney Spears on the wall

      Britney was everywhere.

      a photo of two senior Burmese Indian gentlemen sitting on very small chairs and talking to each other

      Being close to Bengal, Myanmar and Kolkata always had strong links. Rangoon and Calcutta were, in the heyday, the Paris and London of the British empire in the east. Many Burmese people have Indian ancestry, and Burmese-Tamil, Burmese-Gujarati, Burmese-Bengali cultures are totally a thing. You see that in the people, food, language and historical landmarks too.

      a photo of a menu item in Myanmar with fried food, and Burmese and English word that say TOTAL FRIED FOOD

      Fried total food. I love Burmese food.

      a photo of mohinga, a Burmese fish curry noodle soup usually eaten for breakfast

      My routine was to get in to Yangon on the early morning Jetstar flight from Singapore. I would land at Yangon airport, and head straight for Tin Tin Aye in Sanchaung for their famous mohinga. No one was allowed to schedule any meetings for me until I'd had mohinga.

      All photos: various iPhones through the years.

    • B Sides (India)

      Published on July 17, 2023

      When I think back to the life I led in my 20s, I will be forever grateful and amazed that I got to do the things that I did. How did I figure out how to travel around the world, eating, working, writing, taking photos? I don't think that life exists anymore. Not in the same way anyway. But I really milked it for what I could.

      Right out of college, I was a freelance travel and food writer. I wrote about different parts of Southeast Asia. I wrote about chefs. I was interested in history, food culture, people. I still am. But the ways in which I led that life (writing for magazines with "Geographic" in their name, getting advances and payouts from travel guidebooks, selling photos to newspapers), don't and won't exist anymore.

      So I continue to do those things, but with a day job.

      While I was out on the road, my phone photos were an important 'B Roll'. Today I am sharing a selection of those photos in one place, for the first time.

      a photo of two men in Chennai, India, in a restaurant showing some food from behind a counter

      Chennai was often my first port of call. Whenever I had work in India, I would fly first to Chennai. $100 one way from Singapore. Once there, I deeply explored the world of 'nonveg Tamil food', still one of my favorite cuisines anywhere. That love for Tamil Nadu country food was a love that nourished me and kept me happy. Brain masala, mutton sukka, deeply spiced seeraga samba biryanis. They also called this 'military food', and it was cuisine that was eaten in contrast to the totally vegetarian, 'cleaner' high caste food that I never developed a fondness for. Whenever in Chennai, I ate most at places like this.

      a photo of the insides of a restaurant in Chennai that says Sri Velu Military Hotel

      Sri Velu was one place that I frequented for this type of food.

      a photo of a man standing at a window of a Alibag vada pav restaurant in India

      Roadtrips across India were a big part of my life. I went on long rides with friends, and one frequent trip was the road trip from Mumbai to Alibag. Vada pavs were mandatory, of course. Till this day, I still dream about the perfect little potato patties, with the right amount of spice, in a squishy white bread.

      a photo of the outside of an old looking Goan seafood restaurant in Mumbai

      I spent most of my time in either Chennai or Mumbai. These are the two cities that, even today, if you were to drop me there and have me live there for months on end, I would be quite happy. My social circles and my favorite foods remain the same. Goan and all other coastal Konkani food is also a cuisine that I adore. In Mumbai, I frequently went to places like this, as well as to Gomantak or Malvani restaurants.

      a photo of a restaurant with tamil words that says Orosorru

      My happiest food memories are always whenever I get to get Tamil style biryanis. Orosorru in Chennai was a fave for a long time, but sadly they are no longer around.

    • Nearly Two Decades Ago

      Published on July 7, 2023

      One of the things I love about film photography is how it gives me a good sense of my exact feelings at precise moments in time. Depending on the film stock and camera I used, looking at old film photos takes me back in ways that I don't experience with other types of photos I have taken in the past.

      I know, for example, from the low light and lack of sharpness in these first few photos that I was just beginning to learn about film photography, and that I frequently used film stock that was not 'right' for the light conditions.

      a scan of a color photograph of a bus stop in Singapore around 2006

      I know from the photo of the bus stop that this is in 2004 exactly, because I have been taking a bus from this bus stop my entire life and can tell from the way the shelter and seats and ads are set up, that it was when I was heading to university. I also know that I was probably late (because no one is waiting here and it's way past rush hour, so I've definitely overslept, again.)

      a scan of a color photo of a woman sitting outside a mosque in singapore with lots of shoes behind her

      I can tell from this photo of a woman sitting outside a mosque in Little India, Singapore, that this was when I was experimenting with plastic, toy cameras. I came to this area very often for food, and often walked past this mosque.

      a scan of a color photo of grass and dark blue sky in a low lit photo, with buildings in the background

      I know from looking at this photo that it was in the early 00s. This wide open space no longer exists in Singapore. Every inch of open space now has several buildings on it. The tallest building in the background anchors me and lets me know exactly where I was when I took this photo: my cousins lived in that building.

      a scan of a color photo of a prison in Cambodia

      This photo was taken with my first 'real' camera, which was a Nikon F-601 SLR. I used it to take photos on my first 'real' trip abroad, where I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia overland (by bus and taxi and train and motorbike). As part of that trip, I saw some atrocities (Cambodia has a horrible recent history, as demonstrated by the window of Tuol Sleng prison here). I also some great beauty.

      a scan of a color photo of monks at Angkor Wat in Cambodia smiling at a structure

      Like the gorgeous architecture of the temples of Angkor.

      Increasingly, I started to have more and more nice cameras and film things. I also got to go on more trips.

      a scan of a black and white photo of a building in taiwan with ads for tuition centers

      Taiwan was a firm favorite. It was so close, and always so fun. I miss it.

      a scan of a black and white photo of a person

      I even have a photographic record of my unfortunate couple of years where I dressed only in hippie pants and sandals. Here, a self-portrait in Melaka, Malaysia.

      I feel so lucky to have been able to experience that part of the world and to have called it home, and that I always had my camera(s) with me.

    • Bulk Loading Film

      Published on June 27, 2023

      Like so many people who still shoot film, I am now mostly rolling my own. Bulk loading, once you have the equipment, is really easy. I mostly buy bulk rolls of film stock that I can't get off the shelf, so that's a lot of Kodak 5222, Ektachrome, and also motion picture film.

      You can get bulk rolls of many black and white film stocks easily; none for color, except for motion picture color film (I will write another post about how I learned to shoot and process this later on).

      All of this has to be done in the dark.

      At home, I use a dark changing bag. You really don't need a darkroom for most things unless you want to do prints.

      a photo of the front view of a film bulk loader with an arrow over the spindle

      I pop the back of the quick loader open, leaving the crank in. You won't be able to load the film unless you have this crank in. I learned the hard way.

      a photo of the back of a film loader, with a red arrow showing the direction in which to unwind and load the film

      Then, I remove the film from the packaging. If you buy bulk film, only do this in the dark. Shiny side up, I move the film into the recess very slightly, then use my left hand to tighten up the rest of the roll and make it fit in the back. The center of the bulk film roll sits on the spindle, like a roll of tape. Note that film will not advance past the recess unless you have the crank installed in the front.

      Shut the back of the loader, screw it tight.

      a photo of a film bulk loader showing the film coming out of the loader, with a red arrow showing the direction of the film cassette

      Take the loader out of the dark bag. You can use the bulk loader in daylight now. (It only needs to be in the dark when you are loading the bulk roll)

      Remove the film advancer crank. Remove the spool part of a reusable film cassette (I use Kalt, but you can also use these). Cut some adhesive tape, and wrap around the spool. The pointy end of the spool should point towards the back of the film loader.

      a photo of a film loader with a cassette in it and a red arrow pointing at where the spool should be pointed

      Pull out some film and stick the tape on the film to secure it. Grab the film cassette casing and gently slide it so that it encases the film and the spool. Note that this takes some practice: you essentially want to gently twist the film and spool to fit the slit of the casing. Sometimes this can be tough, but keep trying (gently). Screw in the cap to close the cassette.

      Use the small film winder knob (next to crank) to move the spool into the bulk loader so it sits securely. Close the cover.

      Set the counter to 0. Insert the crank. Holding the loader in one hand (I like to tilt it backwards with my left hand), turn the crank until it reaches the arrow. You want to add 4 or 5 extra frames from 36 (or however many frames of film you want per roll). Remove the crank. Open the cover. Use a pair of scissors to cut the film, pulling out enough to make a film leader.

      Repeat.

      You can get around 18 rolls per 100 ft roll, which brings the cost of Ilford HP5 down to $6.67. Retail price for that film is $9.49, so you can save almost $3 per roll of film. If you're shooting 20 rolls of film in a month like I sometimes do, you save $60.

      I have one Bobinquick loader that always has black and white film, and I've got another Watson type loader that has some other film, usually color motion picture film or bulk slide film. I get these from a friend who orders in bulk from Kodak in 400ft, then respools into 100 ft and sends me a few; so that can be even cheaper than buying 100ft rolls directly from a photography retailer.

      Hope this helps! In case you prefer manuals, I've also got scans:

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